


Love's Labor Lost

by rthstewart



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Awkward Flirting, Gap Filler, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-18
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-16 08:46:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13050555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rthstewart/pseuds/rthstewart
Summary: In thy face I see the map of honour, truth and loyalty.Wm. Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 2





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hearteating](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearteating/gifts).



> A missing scene after the conclusion of One Blood, in Season 1.  
> Thank you for the wonderful prompts and I hope you have a wonderful Yuletide!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Funerals can be clarifying.

As always, D'avin registered the sounds first, the crack of the gun's discharge slicing the back of Big Joe's head, the meaty thump of his body slumping to the Royale's sticky floor, and Dutch's sobs.

Before Joe hit the floor, D'avin knew it was Fancy. The direction was from Fancy's usual back table and he'd used a straight, killing shot, not one of the looping wasp darts he'd used on Leith that wouldn't reveal a sniper's location. Fancy wasn't hiding that he was the one who'd just murdered another Killjoy in cold blood.

Everyone was stuck to their spots, like flies in muck, except Fancy. Fancy stepped gracefully over to Joe's body to confirm the kill.

"The Warrant is all." No apology, no explanation. "Joe would have wanted that."

Fancy slowly returned to his isolated table and sat, back to everyone else. Was it a dare for someone to try to exact revenge because Fancy had done what no one else could? D'avin looked around but the other Killjoys who had weapons drawn were returning them to holsters.

 _The Warrant is all._ _Not a murder._ Joe had been executed on a Company-issued Level 5.

Dutch sobbed again, a strange, strangled cry from someone so strong. She surged to her feet and bolted out of the Royale.

"I gotta…" Johnny started.

"Go." D'avin motioned his brother toward the doors, careful to not make it look like he was going to draw on Fancy.

"Turin!" Pree shouted, just as the RAC officer was slowly climbing back up the Royale's stairs like a Qreshi water baron.

"Yeah?"

Fancy called himself the designated asshole but D'avin thought that honor really belonged to Alfred Olyevich Turin.

Pree jerked his head toward Joe's body. "Clean up your mess." Pree's voice dropped a furious, threatening octave lower. "And if you do this sort of business in my place ever again, I'll stake you in the rain myself."

D'avin stared at Joe – no, Joe's body. Once you died, all that was left burned to ash or fed the worms. Whatever made you _you_ , was gone.

Turin rolled his eyes. "Fancy! You know the rules. Clean up your own mess. And you!"

D'avin tried to dodge Turin's pointing finger but wasn't fast enough.

"Jaqobis! This should have been Dutch's job and you're the baby. You help Fancy!"

* * *

D'avin was hot and sweating, his arms were aching, and the acrid stench of everything in Old Town was making his nose run, which he couldn't wipe or blow without letting go of the body bag they'd zipped Big Joe into. Which meant snuffling in even more of the stink. And D'avin was sure the bag hadn't been cleaned in at least its last nine uses.

He didn't want to whine but this was a really shitty job, especially since Fancy refused to pry open his purse and use some of the bounty he'd gotten on Joe's assassination to pay for a damned taxi.

So, block after dark, disgusting block, they shuffled through Old Town toward the Necrotorium. Most people slunk away when they saw two armed Killjoys trudging through the alleys with a body bag between them. They'd only been pelted with garbage twice and had shit dumped on them, probably not accidentally, once. So far.

Even staring at Fancy's straight back, ass, and the AMX-12 Stealth-Saboteur rifle strapped to his thigh weren't distracting enough. Hands growing numb on the bag's handles and barely able to take a breath without choking, D'avin finally muttered, "This doesn't seem to be bothering you at all."

"I'm stronger than you are."

"Not a chance, dick." _Wait a minute_. D'avin planted his feet and the bag between them stretched and then resisted as Fancy slowed, and finally had to stop.

"Need a break, Jaqobis?"

"How about we switch ends."

Fancy turned slowly around, shifting the bag's handles in his hands. "You want _me_ staring at _your_ ass and big gun for another kilometer?"

"No!" _Yes. Maybe? No. Focus._ "I'll take your end, and you take mine, or…" D'avin lifted up his side. "You share whatever is keeping your end of the bag off the ground."

"You are the slow but pretty Jaqobis, aren't you? Your brother would've figured it out before we were out the door."

"Johnny's a nerd." Which wasn't really a good answer when he thought about it.

Fancy let go of the handholds; his end of the bag sagged but hovered, about a dozen centimeters above the Old Town broken pavement.

"Another personal invention?" On the Leith "roadtrip," Fancy had shown off his trace powder that could open any keypad you'd touched, his non-directional wasp dart, his "bloodhound" automated chemoreceptor, and scopes that could search out heat and other unique signatures. It would have been surprising if Fancy hadn't figured out a way to wallow through the filth of Old Town streets without dragging a body bag behind him.

"Portable repulsor tech. Operates at the opposite pole of Westerley's heavy metal ground."

Now that he looked, D'avin noticed the black bands on the bag's underside – at Fancy's end. "We move those things around to share the load, or I'm gone."

It wasn't the frown, but the tone that accompanied it. "You'd really leave a fallen soldier here, on an Old Town street, for the rats?"

"But Joe wasn't…" Judging from Fancy's cold expression, it was smart to not finish the sentence.

 _Prick._ "Fancy, I'll help. Just fix it so we can share the load and get this done."

 _Shit._ Wrong again. Where was Johnny when he really needed him to do all this feeling crap.

"The burden, I mean. Big Joe's body doesn't deserve to be dragged through the street."

"Good you see it that way, Jaqobis. Since it's Joe, I'm feeling charitable, for his sake." As Fancy leaned over the bag, D'avin grasped the handles, and lifted his end up. Fancy pushed two of the bands further down the bag and D'avin felt the bag's weight rise on its own.

"Thanks."

Fancy rose and dusted off his hands. "But you have to take the front the rest of the way."

D'avin released the bag and now the whole thing hovered, not a lot, but enough to evenly distribute the weight. He moved to take Fancy's place. "I take the front so you can watch my ass and big gun, or is it just to make me think you are?"

"And you called me a pervert?"

D'avin decided to not swing his hips the last kilometer of their processional with Joe's body in a magical floating bag. And there was no way he was letting Fancy touch his Bloc-X heavy repeating blaster rifle.

The Necrotorium looked to be the cleanest and quietest place in Old Town, and was even made with genuine stone and wood. It was much smaller and less formal than the military crematoriums D'avin had been in. The Scarbacks might be all in for rebellion in other parts of the city but, here, it was simply the business of compassionately, if efficiently, dealing with death when someone actually cared and could pay for better disposition than dragging a body into the street to be picked up by a Company refuse crew and taken out with the rest of the garbage.

Fancy surprised him by paying a Scarback for a proper shroud and bindings for Joe's body without bitching about the price. "And if we can have a monk and rites in three hours, I'll double that."

"Certainly." This Scarback bloodletter didn't seem as freaky as Alvis.

"What's all this for?" D'avin asked as they left. Fancy was swiftly typing into his PDD.

"Lots of Killjoys who were dirtside for Joe's Black Warrant are still here, so if we do this fast, they'll be able to make it. I was just letting them know."

Fancy pocketed his reader and started walking faster; his long legs stretching across the tar-stained, broken road. The hazy, oppressive heat had turned to a chill, oily, drizzling gray. "Hurry up."

D'avin jogged along. "What for? Where are we going?"

"My rooms."

He pulled up short. "But I was joking!"

Fancy grabbed his sleeve and gave it a hard tug. "I wasn't, and you weren't, but shit, Jaqobis, you really are a pervert. We're going to a funeral and have to get _into_ uniform, not out of it."

Fancy had a bunch of rooms. In a real house. With actual artificial sunlight, fake wood furniture, plushy carpets, real food in a real kitchen you could cook in, growing green plants, and a _fucking gurgling fountain with_ _actual fucking fish_ in it. D'avin tried not to gape.

Given that Lucy was a first class ship, life was obviously really good for a Level 5 Killjoy.

Maybe he could find where Fancy kept that trace powder he'd broken into Lucy with and use it to get into the house when Fancy was off planet.

D'avin wanted to sink into the very comfortable looking couch in the common area and see if he could find smashball on some channel and something in the fridge. Maybe a massage... no, stop. _Funeral._

"Shower's in there." Fancy pointed to a door off the common area and palmed open a closet. "Here, this should probably fit."

D'avin stared at the heavy, stiff jacket and trousers in ceremonial grays and blacks.

Fancy made a disgusted sound. "You have no idea what it is, do you?"

D'avin did recognize the style; he just didn't know what it was doing in Fancy's closet. "A uniform?"

"RAC formal uniform for _all_ formal RAC occasions."

The only thing that got D'avin out of the shower was the worry that Fancy would come looking for him while he was still in it and get really pissed because he'd used up all the hot water. On the other hand, maybe if he did stay in too long… _Stop. Funeral._

He dried off and dressed quickly, a little disturbed at how easy it was to fold himself into a uniform again, even one that was a little loose in the shoulders, a bit snug in the waist, and way too tight in the neck. He couldn't figure out how all the buttons and flair on the jacket were supposed to go, so left them dangling. He felt a little uncomfortable tracking the dust of fried Leithian farmers and Old Town muck from his boots all over the spotless carpets.

As D'avin came out of the bath, Fancy gave him a once over and nodded, almost approving. "At least you won't disgrace us now, Jaqobis, and if you used all the water, I'll hurt you." D'avin was secretly amused that he heard the bathroom door lock.

Fancy had made some sort of minty tea and the second cup seemed an invitation, so D'avin drank it and watched holoprojections flickering on the wall of beautiful blue and green places he'd never seen before.

He was fiddling with the RAC jacket when Fancy returned, wearing the same, though far better fitted formal uniform, and braiding his hair.

D'avin was struggling with the fastenings on the shoulders. They were different from the military uniforms he'd worn for so long and he kept pulling them to fit in holes that weren't there.

"Stop." Fancy reached up and batted D'avin's fumbling hand away. "I can't stand to see you do that to this uniform."

"You are so damned fussy!"

Fancy tugged so hard on the neck clasp, D'avin choked.

Fancy turned away with a look of disgust, and looked himself over in the mirror hanging on the wall. He turned right and left, looking so earnest, as he smoothed the creases, D'avin was going to call him out as vain. He'd even changed into clean boots so shiny you could see your face in them, just the way D'avin's old drill seargent had demanded during inspections.

And then D'avin finally _saw_ , and mentally kicked himself with his grimy, dusty, charred Leithian-farmer boots.

 _Press the whites, shine the boots, trim the hair, honor the dead._ Whether in the military or the RAC, there were rituals for mourning those who died in the service they'd all pledged themselves to. This was about respect for your outfit and loyalty to the men and women you served alongside.

"You look good, very respectful," D'avin said, a tacit apology, and went so far as to pat down stray strands of Fancy's long hair that had escaped the braid. "If I can borrow your kit, I'll get my boots looking more respectable."

"Under the sink."

D'avin got back to the common area, earnestly trying to wipe the polish off his hands, Fancy wasn't there. Maybe in the bedroom … _Stop. Funeral._

He followed the sounds he recognized as gun maintenance past the kitchen to what looked like a workroom and _whoa…_ Life _was really good_ as a Level 5. This was no average weapons cache, even for a professional Killjoy. _Fancy and his damned "personal inventions."_ Half the stuff on the floor-to-ceiling racks he barely recognized; over a third of it had been modified beyond any reasonable legal limit.

Fancy was carefully putting that gorgeous AMX-12 Stealth-Saboteur rifle in its place on the wall, treating it as gently as D'avin would have.

"An M-9 does go better with a dress uniform," D'avin said.

"Prefer the FN myself," Fancy replied, slowly turning around and giving him a long, appraising look. "You cleaned up good, Jaqobis; ask Bellus to set you up with her tailor on Leith."

"Thanks for the loan. And, Fancy, Dutch may not say it, or even John, but thanks for what you did."

He shrugged a little. "Well, the joy was good and I _am_ the designated asshole."

This time, D'avin heard flippant sarcasm covering the deeper truth. "Yeah, maybe, but you did what had to be done, for Dutch, and for Joe. You did right by them in my book."

The pause stretched out too long as Fancy contemplated a row of sidearms, including the FN, M-9, and the heavily modified Mk1 he'd used on Leith.

"Thanks," Fancy finally said, sounding gruff, He reverently took an old VPC1 off the shelf and holstered it. There was another long silence. "Joe was good at what he did for a long time; taught a lot of us."

Dutch used a variant of that same VPC1. A lot of the Killjoys did. D'avin knew something about death and the guilt of surviving and recognized it here.   "You worked with Joe."

Fancy nodded. "We all did. Did my first Level 3 warrant with him; advanced to 4 on a job with him."

For the next hour, Fancy showed him things in the workroom – his guns, his tools, his toys and his inventions. He'd developed the non-directional dart after his sniper nest was bombed – twice. A job he and Joe had, to recover stolen Company tech, had given him an idea for the chemoreceptors in the bloodhound. He'd developed the trace powder after watching Turin hack the security for the fortress of a Badlands crime lord using their target's fingerprints from his own PDD. He'd first tested the stun boomerangs on an apprehension warrant with Dutch and John and managed to knock _everyone_ out – when they came to, the target had run off.

The projectile blade launcher was uncomfortable – it was what Fancy had used to try to kill him on the slaver ship when Johnny had found him and Dutch had saved them both.

"Nothing personal," Fancy said. "It was the warrant."

"I _am_ glad you didn't kill me, though."

"It was _a lot_ of money."

And it _was_ personal, in the way that every weapon and tool in Fancy's collection was personal. Each had a story tied to the men and women of the RAC. The projectile blade launcher told the story of how they met and whatever would follow between them began with it and the competitive active kill warrant on the slaver ship Acturus. Even as the baby Killjoy, D'avin had already begun to feel what Fancy, Johnny, and Dutch so obviously already did – these were the bonds of family and the hard decisions were made out of love.

The alarms on their PDDs both chimed at the same time. It was time to leave for the Necrotorium and lay to rest a member of the family.

D'avin put his hands on Fancy's shoulders, touched his forehead with is own. It was maybe too intimate but sharing in the loss of another member of your unit or tribe deserved nothing less. "It _wasn't_ personal, Fancy. It was the warrant. You gave Joe the clean death he wanted."

They both let out a deep breath. "And he deserves our mourning now."

* * *

D'avin heard from John just as he and Fancy were climbing the stone steps of the Necrotorium.

"Lucy says Dutch is still on Westerley," John said in a worried rush over their comm. "But she's not answering. I wondered if she might show up there for Joe?"

"She's not here," D'avin said. There were about dozen other Killjoys waiting in the atrium, along with Turin and the creepy monk-dude, Alvis. "Keep looking; hopefully she won't fly out of here again without telling us. "

And now he knew what else to say, and why it was important. "I'll represent the team here."

"Thanks, D'av."

Alvis led them to a mourning room. It was the typical rounded shape, with a high ceiling. The Trees were etched into the stone walls, their branches intertwined, one with the other, all encircling the room. There was never anywhere to sit in a mourning room – unless you physically had to, standing was always more respectful. Joe's body was resting on a slab in the middle of the room. Fancy had gotten his money's worth - the shroud was clean and white, and the black bindings surrounding the body lay flat and were wrapped securely. It was all as uniformly professional as anything he'd seen in military mournings.

They all gathered quietly around the slab. D'avin could feel the heat of the crematorium ovens in the soles of his now much shinier boots. He was really glad Fancy had loaned him the formal uniform; every one of the Killjoys had also scrounged one up, here to show respect for a fallen RAC brother.

A monk presented Turin with a roll of green cloth and bowed. Presumably those were Joe's personal effects.

Fancy prodded him in the ribs and nodded slightly. D'avin stepped forward and accepted the cloth roll from Turin. With the expectant looks and shuffles, he cleared his throat and said, "I accept these memories of Joe…" _Shit_ , what was Joe's last name? Did he have a last name? _Did Dutch?_

"Siano," Fancy whispered, just loud enough for everyone to hear.

"I accept these memories of Joe Siano on behalf of my brother, John Jaqobis, and … Dutch." He really needed to find out Dutch's last name.

D'avin had worried the short ritual might be different for a RAC agent with a Scarback presiding, but it was all familiar enough. Alvis laid his hands over Joe's body. "We gather here for the passing of Joseph Siano."

Alvis murmured prayers and invited those who wished to do the same. He was surprised to see Turin bowing his head and muttering along as if he actually believed it. Alvis concluded with the usual prayer, "Only when a seed dies does it bear fruit," and D'avin joined the others in the responsorial, "Praise the Trees; May the roots bind us all."

D'avin had never had a head for theology. He wasn't sure if the thin, flat, bitter wafer offered in the service symbolized the root of the tree, or whether it became the root of the tree after the prayers, or was supposed to transform into a tree once he ate it. He just let Alvis place the wafer on his tongue and suppressed the childish urge to crunch down on it like a bird eating a cracker.

He expected the disposition next, but Turin stepped forward again.

"Today, we mourn all the souls of the RAC."

D'avin pretended to follow along as the Killjoys intoned, "And today we send one home."

Turin continued, "He took no bribes, he took no sides."

He knew what came next, as they proclaimed what bound them all, what they lived by and would die for as a member of the RAC.

"The Warrant is all!"

Alvis pulled the lever and, the heat rose up as the slab with Joe's body slowly descended through the floor to be consumed by the flames below. The monk gave the final blessing "Dirt that nourishes the trees we once were, and to dirt we all return."

"Praise the Trees."


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> D'avin, Fancy and the Cleansed get dirty.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another missing scene, after the Season 2 finale, How to Kill Friends and Influence People

As Johnny and his grief stalked out of the Royale, Fancy limped in.

D'avin looked him over, trying to figure out what seemed off. "Where've you been?"

"Getting stitches." Fancy held up his bloodied, bandaged hand.

Where had Fancy gotten treated when Pawter was dead… _wait_ …

"Holy shit. You're cured?"

"Matter of opinion. Let's say I'm just a regular asshole again."

"Well, I actually missed Regular Asshole Fancy."

And that meant that every Killjoy infected from the Arkyn pool was cured, too. D'avin was still trying to wrap his mind around it, when Dutch decided that Pawter and Khlyen's deaths should mean something. Sometimes, tactically, you took your win and got out and Dutch's idea that D'avin could get old and die in his bed -- with Fancy, or Dutch, or both -- actually sounded pretty sexy. It had been a hell of a year.

But Dutch wasn't going to stop now. "I don't want to win just one battle." Dutch rammed her knife into the Royale bar and Pree winced. "I want a whole bloody war."

Getting shit-faced drunk at the Royale seemed like a good way to declare war on Aneela and whole Hullen collective but Fancy was wincing every time he raised a glass and Dutch really wanted someone to pound, whether in a fight or in the sex rooms upstairs.

"I'm taking you home," D'avin told Fancy. He shrugged under Fancy's less injured right arm and leant his shoulder to the cause as they left the Royale.

It was a long, strange walk given all that had happened, with the Black Root, Khylen, the Sixes, and at the Archive. It was a lot to process and Fancy was very quiet.  D'avin remembered how it felt when he'd come out of that killing rage, racked with guilt, sick at the loss of self-control, and doubting whether every thought or action was your own.

Every time he saw one, D'avin wanted to blast the monitors showing Delle Seyah's arrogant face spouting hypocritical bullshit about Pawter's heroic murder. Delle Seyah had better hope that Johnny didn't find her; D'avin decided he'd help.

Even stranger were the men and women creeping out of dark doorways and alleys to watch them, blinking and nodding as if waking from a nightmare. D'avin recognized a lot their faces.  They were agents Sabine had helped him identify who had been betrayed by the RAC and pumped full of Arkyn green shit. Now, his Killjoy brothers and sisters were wandering the streets of Old Town trying to figure out what the hell had happened. Sabine had been a Six for decades; Khylen for a lot longer than that.  This was _hard._

Fancy stumbled into a pothole and hissed in pain as D'avin helped steady him. "This is your fault, Jaqobi."

"I'm not the one that turned you into a zombie!"

"No, but you were the one who decided to use me as a human shield."

_Oh right._

"Sorry about that. I'll make it up to you."

_Growing old, dying in our beds…_

They were within a block of Fancy's rooms when they came upon a group of people huddled outside the Cosmos Club. There was a body on the ground, which wasn't that unusual at the Cosmos since it specialized in Hokk 9 and other illegal as shit poison. But a bunch of people were crying and that was unusual. 

Nero Joff broke from the group and hurried to them. Nero had been one of Bellus' Level 5s and they'd arm wrestled a few times on Leith between warrants. She was nearly as thick as she was tall, had bright purple hair and always wore a bandoleer of plasma grenades. She was crying.

"What happened?"

Nero fought back a sob and angrily wiped her nose on her sleeve. "We were all fighting, just for fun, yeah? And Max stabbed Curly and he went down, and didn't get up. He's dead."

She gripped Fancy by the shirt front. "He wasn't supposed to die. We're not like we were. Did it…"

Her eyes flicked over the blood seeping through Fancy's shirt and the way he was leaning heavily against D'avin's shoulder. "Shit, Fancy, it got you, too. Do you know what the hell happened?"

D'avin glanced over to Max, kneeling by Curly, sobbing. They'd been Level 5s and had worked the Big Joe black warrant.

"We are committed to her continuing her work..."  D'avin couldn't take it anymore, pulled out his M-9 and shot Delle Seyah just as she was lying about honoring Pawter's memory. Shooting her recording was almost as good as shooting the real thing.

"Sorry," he muttered. "Couldn't help myself."

Fancy shrugged out from under his arm and Nero helped steady him. "Easy there, Fancy-pants. You look like you got chewed up and spit out."

"Some asshole tried using me as a human shield."

Nero angrily snuffled. "I kill 'em for you."

"I got it taken care of," Fancy replied in a really uncomfortable tone. "I hadn't healed completely and then … the…I…" Fancy was struggling to articulate what had happened in the Archive. "And then I was cleansed, same as you were. And the others."

"Cleansed?" Nero repeated. "What, like take a shower? _What happened_?"

Max was crying louder now. They needed to break this up and get the dead body out of the street before Company security showed up; or something worse.

Fancy was already on it. "Nero, you and the others should take Curly's body to the Necrotorium; contact…" He glanced warily at D'avin and now Nero was eyeing him with a frown indicating she suspected who had been the one to use Fancy-pants Lee as a body shield. "You know who to contact. We'll all meet there, mourn for Curly, and talk about what happened."

"Sure." Nero shook her head and rubbed her face. "I don't get it. Two hours ago, I would have shot Curly if someone told me to. And now…" She snuffled back tears. "Now, I'm crying over his dead body? What the fuck?"

"I know," Fancy replied. "It's really weird to be feeling again. And getting hurt again. I'll explain everything in a few hours."

Nero made a disgusted sound and kicked the oily pavement. "It's so pointless. Not like when you killed Joe." She glanced over her shoulder. "What's going to happen to Max, and to the RAC? I just don't get it."

"I'll explain," Fancy said. "For now, just be sure everyone knows we're not invincible anymore. Make sure nobody gets hit by a transport."

"Yeah, I get it. Well, I don't. This is completely fucked and Curly's dead because of it."

Fancy hobbled the rest of the way to his rooms. D'avin had wanted to show off that he'd found a source for trace powder and could break in whenever he wanted, but the joke wasn't so funny now. Fancy palmed open the door and the lights came on.

The whole place smelled fusty and a thin layer of dust coated every surface.

It was sad. Fancy had always tended his rooms the same way he so carefully braided his hair, cleaned his weapons, and maintained his cache of toys and tools. Meticulous, methodical, deliberate, even loving. Now, it all looked abandoned.

"Welcome home," D'avin said, feeling like an intruder to a very intimate reunion.

Fancy looked around, not moving from common area. "I've not been here since Khylen took me to Arkyn." He sounded a lot like Nero had, angry, confused, and just trying to figure out again what feelings were. It was sort of like puberty, but a lot worse.

It would have made more sense to make sure Fancy's stitches hadn't opened and that he got cleaned up. But D'avin thought there was something more important to do. He went through the kitchen to the workroom and opened the door. "Killjoy always sees to his weapon."

Satisfying that basic RAC rule grilled into every Killjoy seemed to help . Cleaning his AMX-12 and putting it back in the proper place on the shelf appeared nearly therapeutic for Fancy. Not merely a return to routine, this was also a rediscovery of the joy in taking care of things you owned, had earned, and were proud of. D'avin had come to know the stories behind many of the things in Fancy's storeroom. So he joked about some of them while Fancy cleaned his guns -- about the sniper's nest, the test run disaster of the boomerangs, and when he'd nearly killed D'avin on the slaver. Killjoys were part of the bigger RAC family and the pieces on the walls and shelves of Fancy's collection represented years of intimacy in that family. 

Level Sixes lost all those connections to the things and people they loved and had been betrayed by the RAC they had all given allegiance to.

Fancy gently replaced his FN on the shelf. "I'll wear my M-9 for Curly's mourning."

D'avin knew Fancy's pattern and how he chose to honor the dead. "You did a warrant with him?"

"Before he started with Nero. He was… a friend, I suppose."

"I am sorry, Fancy."

He nodded. "Thank you, I am sorry, too." D'avin followed him out to the common room and the hall beyond. Fancy removed a uniform – only one – from the closet and dusted the lint from the shoulders.

"I need to get ready. And I need to think about what I tell the others. It's time for you to go."

The dismissal felt cold, even for Regular Asshole Fancy. "I could go, too, to Curly's mourning."

Fancy shook his head. "This is for the Cleansed. You don't belong there."

"Cleansed?"

"What to call _us_. Cleansed of the plasma helps. Makes it clearer what it was."

D'avin got a pat on the shoulder, more of the Regular Asshole (and coy, hard-to-get) Fancy. "Contact me when Dutch starts her war. I want to be there for the payback."

"What about the others? They're RAC agents. Are they…"

Fancy interrupted him with a curt wave and an irritated look. "I don't know, D'avin. Leave them alone for now. Tell Dutch to leave them alone. And Turin. Once they realize the RAC was part of this, I don't know what they'll do."

"Maybe they get really pissed and want to join the war like you?"

"Or maybe decide to just disappear and grow old and die happy in their own beds, like Dutch said? I saw your look. You didn't think it was a terrible idea."

"Depends on who I share it with, I suppose. But, how about this.  If more people join, we could end the war sooner _and then_ grow old in our own beds?"

D'avin got a condescending kiss for that and a shove out the door. When he used the trace powder with Fancy's prints lifted from his VPC1 gun, the front door security wouldn't respond.

Apart from the murderous intent, D'avin thought he might have actually preferred Hullen Asshole Fancy to Regular Asshole Fancy.  He liked Fancy-pants least of all.


End file.
